While the minds of men find new methods of exploiting nature, the world of bark quickly loses itself to the world of brick. The sky too becomes clouded in industrial smog, the polution of the ephemeral life-source supply we call "air".
Since the days of the Industrial Revolution, mankind has played the part of a virus, or more accurately, a parasite. We fed off the world around us, only to become more hungry, only to demand more food. As humanity consumed it grew, it grew to the point that other species were whipped away from existance; a few species vanishing just because their coats shined more than another.
Remember the tragedy of the white-winged moths in Great Britain. Remember how their method of survival, hiding aside white-barked trees, had been destroyed. Pollution coming from Britain's smoking spires coated the trees, turned them into columns of coal of which the moths beared no resembelence. And with that disastorous change, came the population decrease of the moths. Although the moths are now recovering, the darker variant of today shall never be the same as yesterday.
A Critically Endangered Specie
The Harlequin Frog may well be soon a repeat of Great Britain's moths. With the montane forests and humid lowlands they once favored as habitats disappearing to the destruction of natural forests, this terrestrial specie is most definitely in danger. The major disease and threat known as chytridiomycosis has caused enormous population declines the Atelopis varius as well as other species sharing genetic simularities. To make that infection threat even worse, air pollution is believed to have tampered with these amphibians' skin, making them more acceptable to diseases spread by contact.
If a military commander had to determine the Harlequin Frog's situation, he would most-likely say that they'd been encircled, trapped, by the inevitability of death. Below are some of the things which pose a threat to the Harlequin's existance.
While the minds of men find new methods of exploiting nature, the world of bark quickly loses itself to the world of brick. The sky too becomes clouded in industrial smog, the polution of the ephemeral life-source supply we call "air".
Since the days of the Industrial Revolution, mankind has played the part of a virus, or more accurately, a parasite. We fed off the world around us, only to become more hungry, only to demand more food. As humanity consumed it grew, it grew to the point that other species were whipped away from existance; a few species vanishing just because their coats shined more than another.
Remember the tragedy of the white-winged moths in Great Britain. Remember how their method of survival, hiding aside white-barked trees, had been destroyed. Pollution coming from Britain's smoking spires coated the trees, turned them into columns of coal of which the moths beared no resembelence. And with that disastorous change, came the population decrease of the moths. Although the moths are now recovering, the darker variant of today shall never be the same as yesterday.
The Harlequin Frog may well be soon a repeat of Great Britain's moths. With the montane forests and humid lowlands they once favored as habitats disappearing to the destruction of natural forests, this terrestrial specie is most definitely in danger. The major disease and threat known as chytridiomycosis has caused enormous population declines the Atelopis varius as well as other species sharing genetic simularities. To make that infection threat even worse, air pollution is believed to have tampered with these amphibians' skin, making them more acceptable to diseases spread by contact.
If a military commander had to determine the Harlequin Frog's situation, he would most-likely say that they'd been encircled, trapped, by the inevitability of death. Below are some of the things which pose a threat to the Harlequin's existance.